Across the Universe
by DorianGray91
Summary: River Song is gone. Our Doctor needs a lot of distractions; new things to see, people to dazzle, and incredible monsters to contend with. And it all starts at the unlikeliest of places: a Victorian-style theatre pub. Please R&R, you'll honestly love it!
1. The Last

Goodbye.

River's kiss was deep and lingering. Every nerve within him shook and sang, every inch of him tensed with the sensation. She began to break away after moments, but with a jerk he drew her closer still, pressing one palm to the back of her neck. He urged with all his desperation for each moment to become longer, willing Time to let them be, just for a day, one more day.

She couldn't know how intensely this kiss seared through to his hearts, branded and crippled him, made his muscles weak with despair. One of their last.

No - truly _his_ last. The last time that he would ever have her before him in the flesh, tangible and radiant. She would never be like this again in memory.

It had been coming and he had felt it. The sharp clarity of her eyes as she used to observe him had become a wondering haze. Each touch and each kiss had become more tentative, more explorative - breathtaking and chilling all at once.

But this morning, when he had simply shown up as always, and she had gazed at him with such expectation and such purity... so very unlike the Melody who had murdered him. So set for their ready-made future. His past.

It caused a weight in him that he had only felt once before and that no person should have to feel twice. Another man had settled into his body and sat there like a rock, like old age and weariness - the man he was to become, when he had lost her to Time.

He abruptly dropped his arms until only their fingers touched, and leant his forehead against her own. Sighs escaped from him as often as breaths.

She took his face in her hands and forced him to meet her stare.

She began to speak, but found she had nothing to soothe him with. His fathomless, ancient blue halos and the dense blackness within them were overpowering.

There would be no arguing, no comfort and no consolation. They reflected the universe, and the universe was a vast, cruel, desolate thing. No matter how far he ran, he would never escape it.

He had to go. He was needed. Always needed.

He wondered that he couldn't force himself to ignore it all, in favour of River. How could he not, at the end, turn his back on the universe, just to stay another day?

"You can't stay, my love," she murmured, caressing his hair softly, "it isn't your nature."

He set his jaw and stared fixedly at the ground. He resented how correct she was. As always.

"What will I have now, without you?" he managed through clenched teeth. He could hear his own voice breaking.

She drew his mouth to hers, and brought warmth back into his body.

"I would like to move forwards knowing that you'll live, and live well. There's more to the universe besides me, love." she grasped his quivering hands in her own, "Run, if you need to keep running. But don't mourn, while I'm happier by the day. And don't be afraid to move forward yourself."

"What do you mean?" anger flared up, betraying itself in his growling tone, "What would I want with anyone but you?"

"Everything I am going to give you. Nine hundred years deserves more than one love interest, I should think, don't you?"

"Never." he spat, "Don't think it."

Time was hurtling away from them. In seven seconds, he was going to run to the TARDIS and across the universe, away from the only soul that had ever settled him in it.

"You know I love you." she smirked, and the eagerness of new adventure was alight in her face. He could see every of their encounters hidden within her, waiting to become, to happen.

He wished that his beginning had been as prepared, as intoxicated as this - that he had been ready to drink up every second. He had wasted too much Time.

He drew an object from his jacket pocket and placed it gently into her hands.

"What's this?"

"My old sonic. Updated." he muttered, eyeing it with aversion. He had dreaded to touch it since the day it had been remade. Giving it to her left with him a sickening sense of finality. It settled astride his already bowed shoulders: the last, awful weight.

He could barely lift his head to take her in for the final time.

"Remember the book." he said.

One last, aching kiss, then he turned on his heel and he ran.

He didn't look back.


	2. The Library

The Library.

Fifty three days later.

The Library was still and quiet as the day he and Donna had first ventured there. Shadows still lurked in all places, now harmless and lifeless, and he drifted through the building like one of them. He walked with the painful steadiness of a man with equal forces pulling him on and tempting him back. Often he looked as though he would stop, bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously, almost turning his head to consider... but always continuing. Always struggling on against his will.

As he drew near to where he knew CAL would be, his pace lengthened and his frown became more prominent. In the silence he could hear his hearts working, jolted by fear and desire in equal measure.

He turned the corner.

"Hello, Charlotte."

The pale face glanced his way and the eyes widened slightly.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor. You've met me."

"I don't remember you."

This took him aback. He rocked on his feet for a moment, a chill beginning to slither down his spine. Then -

"...You don't look the same." she observed.  
>"Well, no..." he ran a hand through his hair, breath caught in his chest, "Charlotte... is River still with you? Could you give her a message from me?"<p>

"River?" her forehead creased. She looked as if she was trying to remember - but that wasn't possible.

"How long has it been since I was last here, Charlotte?" he clenched his teeth to stop his voice from shaking.

"... An awfully long time."

The Doctor whipped out his screwdriver and held it aloft, face contorted with anxiety. He checked the reading.

"Twelve million years." he choked out, barely having the breath to get the words out. His body turned chill and tingled.

A horrifyingly morose expression appeared in Charlotte's dark orbs and spread across her face.  
>"River... I remember River."<p>

_"What happened to her?" _he demanded, suddenly fierce.

"River chose to pass. I let her go. I deleted her."

There was a space of seconds in which the whole universe seemed to close in on itself. Then it folded out again, and everything in it was suddenly hideous and alien. Hostile.

His mind swayed and buzzed, plunging him into flickering darkness and filling his ears with numb, white noise.

Then the curtain lifted from his eyes, and the universe, he saw, was all one terrible shade of crimson red.

_"WHY?"_ he raged, taking three unconscious steps towards the creature which echoed furiously around the room, _"WHY DID YOU DO THAT, CHARLOTTE?"_

"She asked me, she begged me!" Charlotte protested, "She was happy, and then she wasn't. She couldn't stand it after so long. She stopped being happy at all."

"Couldn't stand what?" he spat, though he knew the answer already. It sat in him like some abhorrent, abortive child, waiting to be out in the open, to be acknowledged.

"Being alive without you. Being cut off from the universe. She could never be satisfied trapped in one place - I suppose you knew it too." Charlotte's pity was too much. Her ancient eyes shone with tears in that baby's face - the burden of responsibility for death that he knew so well.

"Then I'll just have to rewind." he muttured, more to himself that to CAL, "I'll find her in here alive. Just give me a minute -"

"You can't do that." Charlotte stopped him as he was about to run, "She said you'd do that. So she told me how to put a barrier around the place. A twelve-million year barrier. Just in case, she said."

"_Why?_"

"Because she knew you wouldn't be able to reach her. You can't reach them in here, Doctor. They're files." she answered tragically, "She wouldn't have heard you anyway."

For a moment he stood fixated. His muscles were so rigid that they felt like a suit of armour - only the tremors running through them gave away the turmoil his mind was spinning through.

Then he launched himself at the machine that, on his last visit, he could have kissed for joy. One foot connected solidly with the metal, again, again, while his hands searched for buttons, any buttons that could undo what had been done.

"Stop! Stop! You'll break us! You mustn't touch that!" her shrill voice panicked in wake of his ire, pleading him, "Doctor! Doctor, don't kill all of us!"

His arms dropped to his sides immediately. He turned away, regretting the dent he had put into the hard drive.

"I'm sorry, Charlotte." he couldn't prevent his welling tears any longer and let them stream, his back to her, "Of course I couldn't kill you."

He turned on his heel and ran - and did not look back.


	3. The Pub

The Pub.

Three months later, an elderly man by the name of John Symonds started to cross the road.

He was a man of simple tastes. For this reason, he spent the majority of his weekdays hunting out the best pubs in the centre of his city; ones in which he could sit in uninterrupted thought, with a drink. He had been a banker before he'd entered the world of retirement. He stuck to the more expensive side of town.

At this moment in time, he was heading towards a rather grandiose Victorian pub by the name of the Old Joint Stock.  
>But something stopped John Symonds for a moment that day.<p>

Exactly what stopped him was the sight of a blue 1930's police box popping into existence, quite quietly, with no fuss.

John was about to pass the whole thing off as a definite symptom of elderly delirium, but his excuse was rather rudely dispelled by the appearance of a man from within the box - who promptly conjured up an odd-looking stick and held it above his head, pulling bewildered expressions.  
>Like an embarrassed witness to a terrible social faux pas, John felt that he should get about his own business. His eyes and his feet, however, were glued in place out of perverse curiosity.<p>

The man stuck his head back into the police box and called indignantly, "Oi! I asked you for somewhere diverting! This is just another city - on boring old planet earth!"

He then took a quick look around, making a note of the surrounding shops, and yelled over his shoulder again.  
>"Ted Baker? Louis Viton? What are you trying to suggest, that I need to update?"<p>

He looked down at himself suddenly, and his eyebrows rose in apparent revelation.  
>"Maybe I <em>do <em>need a bit of a re-style..."

At this point he abruptly spotted John, who stood transfixed on the pavement. John watched this man amble towards him with the quiet terror of a hare under the gaze of a gigantic and hypnotic fox.

"Hullo!" the stranger called with an enthusiastic grin, clicking his fingers - the police box doors snapped shut! "Sorry, talking to myself again! Could you point me to the nearest site of danger?"

What an unusual way to begin a conversation.

"Excuse me?" was all poor John could manage.  
>"<em>That <em>is a _lovely _pocket handkerchief. I may use that next. Although - not certain about the polkadot. No offence."  
>"Why... none taken." John managed, fingering the familiar silk as though fondling the remnant of his sanity. Just making sure it was there.<p>

"Now, John," the man stood at more or less the most socially uncomfortable distance from him, still grinning manically, "I need you to do me two favours, and tell me quickly! One! Tell me if there's been anything unusual going on around here lately."  
>"Well - not that I can think of. Jean at The Shakespeare was fired yesterday, she had a very loud row with a cust-"<p>

"Okay, we'll leave that for now," the stranger interrupted, lilting in a surprisingly well-to-do English accent for his age. "Two! I would like you to help me choose a new suit. You seem good with that sort of thing. What do you say? Ted Baker or Moss Bros?"

"Erm..."  
>The man beamed in a frighteningly affable manner - "Come along then, you old <em>treasure<em>!"

John found himself being marched on an invisible leash towards the open doors of Ted Baker, in wake of this man-shaped force of nature.

"Ahh, what's your name, my boy?" he asked, trying his hardest to appear at ease.  
>"People call me The Doctor."<br>"Oh. Where did you graduate? You seem rather young."

_The Doctor_ didn't answer his question. Instead, he darted altogether inappropriately into the shop, looking over the rows of pristine clothing at a lighting rate. John felt rather as though an uncomfortably fast-moving rollercoaster ride had simply picked him up from out of the sky, and he was now holding for his life, wondering when on earth it would be time to get off again.

It took_ the Doctor_ roughly four minutes to pull out a tightly fitted grey jacket, light blue shirt and mahoganny leather shoes.  
>"Back in a tick. Don't go anywhere."<p>

John was too taken aback to consider the possibility of movement, in the thirty seconds it took for the Doctor to re-emerge from the changing room. He was frowning deeply.

"Trousers don't go." he complained, picking at his old pair, "I don't want these, anyway. I want... what _do_ I want?"  
>He moved away, skimming along like a hummingbird towards the more casual garments.<p>

"Aha!" beaming triumphantly, he held aloft a pair of fitted black jeans, "Casual! Makes me feel young."

This comment did not make sense to John. He was readying himself to make for the door and be rid of this strange fellow.  
>However, the Doctor was already pulling him towards the ties.<br>"Colour, I need a good colour."

"Your bow tie was... very suited already." John mumbled.  
>"Yes. Bow ties <em>are <em>cool." he agreed thoughtfully.  
>He rushed towards the handkerchiefs instead, and dug through the boxes until he suddenly retrieved, like the sword from the stone, a wonderful dark maroon specimen.<p>

He paid immediately, throwing notes at the assistant from some pocket of his old tweed jacket which lay folornly on the floor, and then began the process of arranging his bow tie and folding his handkerchief. Tags were ripped off, and there he stood - a new man.

John wouldn't have chosen the jeans, but he was, overall, rather impressed with the gentleman's good taste.

"Now," the Doctor paused, and then politely said, "- your name."  
>"John."<br>"John, yes! John -" the Doctor took him by the shoulders and steered him out of the shop, "Take me to this _Old Joint_, if you will."  
>"Ah, yes, well. I was just going there myself. It's this way." John blanched. The plan <em>had<em> been to get rid of this bemusing character.

Together they entered through the gargantuous oak doors - "Do doors even need to _be_ that big?" - and crossed the deep red patterned carpet, to the glossy black marble of the island bar at the centre of the room.

"Look up for a treat." John suggested, smiling. Now he was in his element. _Now_ they were on his turf, and _lord knew _he was going to enjoy a beer in peace.  
>The Doctor looked up.<br>"Glass dome ceiling. Very nice. Love the curtains - and busts! What sophistication."

"It was a library when it was built."  
>"And a very nice library, too." the Doctor assured him condescendingly, "May I buy you a drink?"<br>"A London Pride would be appreciated."

The Doctor strolled up to a free section of the bar and twiddled his thumbs while he waited.

A fantastic arrangement of pinned-up, hazel-brown curls caught his eye as it breezed towards him. Beneath it hovered a pale heart-shaped face set with sparkling blue eyes, a button nose, and a pair of full smiling lips.

"What can I get you?" her voice was coated with accomodating sweetness.  
>"A London Pride, and... Shakespeare's County, please. You lot <em>do<em> take nostalgia to the limit. Deary me!" he sighed, but with a smile.

"_Deary me_? What century are you from?" she smirked, pulling the first pint and glancing at him from under her long eyelashes.  
>He laughed ironically, and then stopped.<br>"Speaking of centuries, which are _you_ from? You look like a pre-Raphaelite painting -"

"Sure, yeah. I've heard that before." she rolled her eyes.  
>"La Belle Mano. Or the Bath of Psyche."<br>"That's six pounds ninety." she held out her hand, ignoring him now. Her abruptness took him aback.

"People don't usually reject my compliments," he observed with a crooked smile.

"I'm used to _compliments_, thanks. I'm just surprised that you're notmiddle aged and married." she observed cynically, but kindly.  
>He dropped the coins into her palm, but motioned that she should stay where she was.<p>

"What's your name?" he asked, with all seriousness.  
>"Alice." she looked as though she were expecting less welcome questions to arrive next. A frown began to threaten her brow.<br>"Have you seen anything unusual around here lately?" he murmured confidentially, "Around the street, or in the pub..."  
>He glanced up to the balcony and noticed a sign that read <em>Theatre 2nd Floor<em>. "Or up there?"

"I don't go up to the theatre. _But_ some people say it's haunted. Hannah hates locking up, she says there's noises and stuff. But that's normal - for a theatre."

"Sure." he pretended to agree, "Well, thanks. Goodbye."  
>"Enjoy your drinks."<br>Then he went and sat down with John.

Alice glanced at him more than once, in the next hour that he sat at the small oak table, inspecting from a distance every visible inch of the pub.  
>He only openly looked back when she was approached by an worried looking co-worker. There were few words exchanged, but enough to spread an anxiety from one girl to the other.<p>

It was all he needed to see.  
>He jumped up and dived back to the bar, waving impatiently at her.<p>

She served more people while he attempted to cut in, obviously used to this kind of nuisance, and only halted in front of him once the bar was empty.  
>"What did she say to you?" he asked, voice low and thrilling as he held her eyes.<p>

"Hannah's not come in for her shift. She isn't answering her phone." she kept glancing down and up again, as though she were trying to ignore his charm.  
>"When did anyone last hear from her?"<br>"I saw her night before last, when she was locking up."

"Yes. Of course."  
>He turned on his heel and ran.<p>

"Wait, you're not going up there!" she commanded, making to go after him as he neared the doors to the staircase.

He stopped, and looked back. She was poised to jump after him, despite the bar slowly filling up with customers again. Her eyes were wide and stern.  
>He flashed her another crooked smile, and jerked his head invitingly.<p>

"Are you coming or not?"

Then he took off again, and it was all she could do to run after him.


	4. The Theatre

The Theatre.

"Hey! Hang on!"  
>"Hurry up!"<br>"You're not allowed in the theatre! There's not even a play on tonight!"  
>"There's nothing in here!"<br>"In where?"

He darted out of the Function Room as Alice reached the first floor, panting.

He was barely out of breath, his eyes incandescent with the thrill of the chase he was leading her on.  
>She wasn't feeling it.<br>If Peter came up from the office and noticed that she'd gone on a wild trespassers hunt, she'd be for it.

She had barely opened her mouth before he crossed the floor to the toilets, and had disappeared into the Gents. She leant against the wall in dismay.  
>"Would you PLEASE just come back downstairs? I'm going to get in a lot of trouble. We're busy enough -"<p>

He emerged again suddenly, and then shot into the Ladies. He was like a minnow fish, flashing out of sight before her eyes - she'd never catch him.  
>And if she did - take him to Peter? Frog march him out of the pub? For what? For being... weird?<p>

"There's nothing in there either. What's the code for that room?" he asked, pointing at the door in front of him as he popped up again.

"You are being very rude."  
>"Sorry. What is the code for that room <em>please<em>?" he replied earnestly.  
>"You're NOT allowed IN. That's the <em>staff changing<em> -" she protested loudly.

He reached out at lightning speed and pressed a finger firmly against her lips. She flinched, her eyebrows disappearing under her messy fringe as her eyes popped open.  
>"Shush." he said, "I'm the Doctor. I can do anything I need to. And for your information, you are <em>all<em> in much more danger than you understand."

She made a noise of general confusion and alarm, but he shushed her again, gently this time, and his expression became calmly serious, his mouth set in stubborn expectancy.  
>"You <em>really<em> just have to trust me."

Then he took away his hand and stuck it into his inside pocket, producing an unusual-looking tool. He pointed it very assuredly at the lock, and abruptly green light erupted from its tip as it buzzed and sang.  
>There was a sharp click, and he pulled the handle.<br>The door swung open.

Alice positively goggled at him as he entered the closet room at high speed, peering around stacked chairs and coats.  
>"Who are you?" she floudered with words, "Where did you get that?"<p>

He just grinned at her as he swept past, back into the corridor.  
>"Nothing in there at all. Upstairs it is."<p>

"But you're not allowed unless you're in a play or an audience member and a play is actually _on_." She stepped around him and barred his way to the stairs, trying to give the impression that her petite frame was potentially menacing.  
>They looked at each other. His eyes narrowed slightly.<p>

"This isn't even working any more, is it?" she huffed.  
>"It never worked." he beamed, "Come on!"<p>

... And she went along with him.

They mounted the next flight of steps together. Alice sensed their strides matching as they ran side by side, and with a strange sort of rush she began to feel a nervous, ecstatic thrill hereto unknown. He made it seem as though she almost knew him already.

Not even that. He just made her feel like part of a winning team - and she suddenly wanted to trust him.  
>He made her feel that something completely beyond her was about to happen.<p>

The top floor attained, his first words were "Let's split up and look for clues."  
>"What clues? And did you <em>actually<em> just say that?"  
>"Anything unusual. And I have <em>always <em>wanted to say that, so don't ruin it for me. Off you go."

He vanished into the nearest room and she headed up the corridor towards the small theatre.  
>On her way past the Green Room, she stopped - peered at the floor - and then burst into an awful, fitful scream, backing up as fast as she could into the wall behind her.<p>

The Doctor came storming through the doorway and rushed to her side, throwing a protective arm around her. He pushed her towards the staircase and knelt down to inspect the mess that was seeping from under the Green Room door.

"It's blood! It's blood -" Alice choked.  
>"Yes, yes! Calm down. Let me have a look." he retrieved his tool again and pointed it at the dark liquid patch, making it flash and zizz away - and then peered reflectively into its side, jaw set in a way that frightened her.<p>

"It's not just blood." he murmured slowly.  
>Then he stood up, slowly turned the door handle, and swung it lightly open.<p>

Scattered in a small area within the Green Room were Hannah's work clothes, and around and inside them were masses and masses of blood and pale nude liquid. Something powdery and white lay in patches over its surface.

"What the hell is that?" Alice drew closer against her own will, magnetised with horror.  
>The Doctor sighed deeply. He seemed a million years away from the sharp, energetic man he had been just a half minute ago. His shoulders were sagging.<p>

"It _is_ blood." he said very quietly, looking at Alice's shoes by way of addressing her, "And organs. And flesh, and skin, and hair, and bones. It's a whole body."  
>"But how did she - Hannah - <em>get - <em>like that?"  
>He looked her in the eye for a moment, as though judging her strength of stomach.<p>

"She was ripped apart. Atom by atom. This is what's left after everything about her has been separated to a miniscule degree and just dropped."  
>He was utterly serious.<p>

"But how can - we don't have the technology -"  
>"No. <em>You<em> don't." he agreed meaningfully. He looked as though he expected her to fall flat at any second.  
>"So who - or what?..."<br>"Yes, I think _what_ is the more appropriate question. And I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out, and I'm going to stop it. That's what I was brought here to do."

She was about to ask how, but the strangest feeling was beginning to slither up and down her arms. It tingled with such precision and detail that she felt - it was difficult to grasp.  
>She could almost feel <em>more <em>of her own arms than she ever had before, in such tangible detail - and now in her legs.

The Doctor was looking down the corridor to her left. Somehow - somewhere in the instinctual part of her mind - she knew that he was gazing at something. An awful thing. She felt it in her raised hairs, caused by the minutely accurate tingling in her limbs.  
>She didn't want to look too.<p>

"Alice, I need you to run. Downstairs. Now." he commanded quietly.  
>She couldn't <em>not<em> turn her head to look. It drew her sickeningly.  
>And then she saw - an actor. An actor with a donkey's head. She knew him.<p>

"That's Bottom." she observed calmly, "From A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was on last night."

The feeling was spreading to her torso, but the urgency to run was not strong at all. She wanted more to know what an actor was doing in the theatre, the night after his show had ended.

"Alice!" the Doctor warned.  
>"But it's only an actor."<br>"Look at its body, Alice. Look at its hands."

She did, and the second she began to concentrate, the black-clad legs began to seem very uneven. Its spine was contorted so that its ugly stomach stuck out. Its hands looked more like drooping pieces of cloth.  
>And the donkey's head was... savage. It was hideous.<p>

"Can you feel it too?" she asked in sudden terror, "Doctor, is it trying to hurt us?"  
>Sharp pain coursed through every nerve in her entire body like an electric shock. She doubled up, screeching.<p>

Through blurred, half-crossed eyes she caught sight of the creature beginning to shuffle alarmingly quickly towards them. Its misshapen legs carried it up and down in jerks, its massive glaring head bent towards her with mouth open, large donkey teeth and tongue looming for her. It was a face of madness, and she was spinning and swinging helplessly inside the cool-liquid blackness of its saucepan round eyes... Her body jerked and racked again.

Hands grasped her under her arms, hauling her onto her feet and shoving her towards the stairs, and then she was running down towards the earth, his footsteps not inches behind her, his compelling voice loud in her ears.  
>They didn't stop at the first floor but kept on stumbling, bursting out into the main pub space amidst the babbling crowd, sweaty and panting - Alice on the brink of collapse.<p>

He didn't wait around to see her to the bar, but half-dragged her straight outside. She wondered blindly if any of the staff would see her leaving.  
>She was crossing the road and abruptly, impossibly, encountering a large blue wooden <em>thing<em>, sat in the middle of the pavement, right next to the post box.

She felt that if she spoke she may vomit and never stop, so she let him carry her awkwardly in through the slim door and place her carefully on the ground inside. She leant her forehead against the cool surface with her eyes tightly closed, concentrating on breathing and definitely _not_ thinking.

Two minutes or three or five later, his gentle fingers lifted her chin and sat her vaguely upright again.  
>She didn't dare open her eyes yet, so simply accepted the warm cup that was put into her hands. She took a hesitant sniff.<br>"Tea?"  
>"Drink all of it. I guessed you were a two sugars sort of person."<p>

"I'm trying to get it down to one and a half." she smiled slightly as she took a sip, and felt that it revived her. She gulped it down as she became steadier - it was _really_ good tea.  
>"I've put a little something in to rebalance your physical - stuff. It'll fix anything slightly burst or broken right up. Makes it taste nice." his voice and receding footsteps floated towards her from across the box.<p>

Slightly more than from across the box, she thought.  
>The box smelt slightly funny, too. She had never smelt anything quite so - scientific - before. Like the inside of a combined mechanical and chemical laboratory.<p>

"You can open your eyes now." she could hear him smirking.  
>Slowly she focused, and turned her head from side to side, taking in the nonsensical image that her eyes were forcing upon her brain.<p>

"Are we inside the box?" she asked faintly.  
>"Yes. And."<br>"It's a lot bigger than it looked before."  
>"Sorry? Speak up!"<br>"I said it's - it's bloody huge - on the inside."

"Welcome, you brainy thing." he teased, smiling down at her from his place at the central... deck? Control panel? Modern art display?  
>"What is it?"<br>"Time and relative dimensions in space."

"Huh?" she squinted up at the hundred lights fixed into the walls, then turned to look at the inside of the Police Box door, "You're just talking Big Bang Theory jibberish now."  
>"Well, no - not really. The Big Bang was a much longer time ago than <em>she<em> was built. We've been there, though."

"Wha - I meant the series? Sheldon Cooper?" she ignored his last bewildering comment, "_Nobody_ hasn't heard of The Big Bang Theory."  
>"Not even a space man?"<p>

She heard the implications in his voice, finally, reluctantly, took the hint, and looked seriously up at him.  
>"You are not honestly suggesting that you come from space."<br>"No. I'm not suggesting. I'm stating a perfect fact."  
>"I don't believe you."<p>

"I'll show you. Later. But first we have bi-ig problems to solve! Like why there is an _atom-splitting alien_ in your theatre. Drink up!" he exclaimed, dashing around the console to attach his ridiculous tool to something or other.

He had lit up again, like a superbly flashing light bulb. "We have a LOT to do!"


	5. The TARDIS

The TARDIS.

The sonic was connected up and in the process of a cross-exfoidational tendal scan.

The Doctor pushed another cup of cure-spiked tea into Alice's hands and gave her a winning smile, hoping that the pale look would soon vanish from her cheeks.  
>"What are you doing now?" she asked politely, eyes roving the wires attached to the screwdriver.<p>

"Doing a cross-exfoidational tendal scan into the TARDIS." he smirked when he saw her expressive response, "It's scanning my screwdriver. So I can study the information properly."  
>"Like more about what happened to Hannah?"<br>"Yes." he said warily.

She tiptoed to the cream leather chair and settled into it, warming her white hands around the mug.  
>The Doctor zipped around the console a few times, checking and rechecking the scan as the information was slowly pieced together.<p>

He heard a muffled sniff.

He stopped abruptly, and peered around the console at her. She had put her mug down and now her face was in her hands instead.  
>She trembled like a little leaf, as though she would disintegrate at any moment - ironically, as she nearly <em>had<em> just been disintegrated.

He dashed immediately over to the chair and knelt softly. He could feel her tensing up at his closeness.  
>"Why are you crying?" he took her fingers away from her face and tipped her chin up gently, searching her eyes as they welled up and overflowed irresistibly.<p>

"I don't know!" she looked as surprised as he was, "It's just - a weird day. Hannah is... I don't know, a soggy _mess_ - there's a terrifying monster upstairs... you have a multi-dimensional _spacecraft_ next to my pub -"  
>With that she really began to sob, apologising in between hiccups of "such a weird day".<br>The Doctor blanched. He was not up to this sort of thing.

"...He-ey?" he began tentatively, reaching out a finger to wipe her tears and then withdrawing it, then reaching out again, hesitating, then settling for a pat on the knee, "Hey. Shush now. Shush now."  
>"-weird day-" she cried again.<br>"I understand... Sort of." he tried to place an arm around her shoulders, but his kneeling position didn't give him much help.

Taking her hand, he pulled her awkwardly to the floor instead, and this time managed to get one arm around her shoulders and one around her tiny waist. She was so petite. He could have picked her right up like a doll.  
>She shuddered slightly - he could feel the fear rolling off her body - and put her face against his lapel.<p>

After a while she paused, and put two hands flat on his chest in wonder, eyes opening wide. Her mouth dropped slightly.  
>"You have two heartbeats." she murmured in a flat voice.<br>"Yes. I do."  
>"Why do you have two heartbeats?"<br>"What do _you_ think?" he gazed down at her with a slight smile of tender amusement.

"I think I'm still having a weird day." she squeaked, and started to cry again, with redoubled confusion.

Slowly, eventually, she began to arrive at the embarrassed stage of recovery, sniffing a lot more and crying a lot less - dabbing at her eyes, and apologising profusely.  
>He told her to shush again, and simply pressed his cheek against the top of her head and squeezed her closer to his body, as he finally found the embrace comfortable -<p>

Because he had suddenly realised that it was odd to him, to be holding another person.

And then, even more embarrassingly, it was _he_ who felt he needed it. He physically _needed_ the warmth of her back, and the human smell of her wild, tawny curls.  
>He shushed her some more to stem his emotion, half-pretending to comfort her as he quietly clung to the life - the <em>other<em> life - that he now held without inhibition.

Somebody needed him. And it didn't feel like so much of a weight any more.  
>This delicate, soft, sweet-smelling little thing needed him, and he needed her, at least for now. He needed a companion like this one.<p>

Without realising it he decided, for the hundredth time, that he was going to lift somebody, quietly, with no fuss, off the face of the earth and adopt them for his own.  
>He was going to lure her out of her home with all the wonders of the universe, and she wasn't going to say no.<p>

"I'm really sorry." she mumbled again, laughing at herself with ringing irony, "I don't know why I'm complaining, I've been waiting for this _all_ my life -"  
>"Who hasn't?" he interjected, tossing down a crooked little grin.<br>"- hormones anyway... just a shock, that's all."  
>"Ah! Hormones." he chuckled softly, "So young."<p>

"Twenty isn't young." she muttured with regret, "I'm a fifth of the way through my life. Practically ancient."  
>"Oh, no, you are<em> not<em>. You have _no_ idea, you bright little thing." he twirled a loose ringlet of her brilliant hair around his finger, grinning slightly. "You should hear how old I am."  
>"How old?"<p>

The TARDIS emitted a satisfied humming sound, and the Doctor rose quickly, forgetting the exhilaration of her soft skin and cotton work shirt. Other things were happening.  
>"Another time. We're getting somewhere."<p>

She followed him curiously to the helm panel and watched him pull down the screen and skim over its weird heiroglyphs with lightning speed.  
>His jaw fell slightly open, and his eyes widened in genuine surprise.<p>

"What?"  
>"That alien, it wasn't ripping Hannah's <em>atoms<em> apart at all." he replied, insensitive to her tenderness on the subject, "It was taking her apart by her _bodily cells_... why would it do that?"

He ran around to the typewriter, bringing the screen with him, and tapped some code in furiously. More squiggly alien letters sprang up, and his amazement increased.  
>"Brilliant!" he exclaimed quietly, "They took apart every cell and stole its <em>nucleus<em>. Literally took all the best stuff right out of her and let the rest go. It _must_ be for nutrition. It can't be for anything else."

He turned to Alice with a very serious expression.  
>"Alice. They eat <em>nuclei<em>. They literally dig them all out like seeds or yolk - and devour them. That's how they're surviving up there. _But_... they've only just got here - or - _it's_ only just got here. Else it would have taken more."

"Erm." Alice said, standing up awkwardly and looking more than a little hysterical, "Erm."  
>"But why are they up there?" he began to pace impatiently, "Why are they trying to look like they belong? <em>What<em> are they?"  
>"I don't know." she mouthed, staring uncomprehendingly up at the reams of foreign words, "How are we going to find out?"<p>

He pointed at a particular place on the screen that supposedly signified something to his vastly enhanced intellect.

"The force they use to pull your body apart - the directed energy - is called Organella Extratus Radiation - it's a reverse radiation, it acts like a boomerang - it's a specifically Eukaryote based technology."

He paused, and frowned, "I don't explain things the _really easy _way that often. Now I know why. It's so _boring_!"

"I don't -" she began, but he had already dashed up some stairs and disappeared into another part of the TARDIS.  
>She listened to his footsteps fading down what must have been some long corridor, and it made her shiver to think about how big this place might be. The excited sort of shiver. The kind you get when a huge storm or snowfall is on the way, and you're miles out into the countryside and you know you're going to be trapped right in the middle of all that chaos, witnessing the brutal beauty of the world.<p>

Brutal beauty had come at just the right time for her.

He skittered back into the console room with something small and round clutched between thumb and forefinger.  
>"This is our shield." he stated, looking very confident about the fact.<br>"Will both of us be able to get behind it?" she joked weakly, eyeing it with mistrust.

He squeezed it once, and something almost invisible, like water stretched out into a fine gauze curtain, leapt from the tiny ball's circumference and spread before them in a vague oval shape.  
>"Very nice." she said, almost managing a smirk, "It's strange enough to belong to you."<p>

"Don't get lippy." he smirked widely in return, clipping her on the shoulder, "It'll hopefully absorb that radiation, at least for a while. I don't know exactly how powerful our actor's abilities are."  
>"So what, you're going back up there, to do what?"<br>"Talk to them, find out why they're here, what they're really after." he tucked the marble-sized device into his top pocket with his maroon handkerchief.

"You think you can persuade them to leave? What if they just go terrorise somewhere else?"  
>"Aliens do tend to do that, but it didn't seem overly intelligent. Perhaps it will listen. Perhaps I can <em>help<em> it."  
>He leaned against the console, gazing at her as he waited for her next words.<p>

This was the moment, her moment, to prove she was really his material.  
>"Monsters who need help." she mused, assessing him in much the same way, "Yeah, I guess that could be it. So that's what you do? You doctor aliens?"<p>

"I doctor people first. Aliens can usually look after themselves." he laughed quietly.  
>His eyes became warm again as he regarded her, and for a short while there was silence.<br>She stared levelly at him, making a decision.

"So... what am I going to do?"  
>"What do you <em>want<em> to do?"

She didn't answer. Only ducked her head.  
>In an instant The Doctor unplugged his screwdriver, tucked it into his pocket, and strode towards the door purposefully.<p>

"Stay here, Alice." he threw over his shoulder.  
>Alice's mouth dropped in indignation. She was shaken, but god knew she wasn't a coward.<p>

"Hey!" she shouted after him in protest, "No _way _am I not coming!"

He whipped back around to gaze perceivingly at her from the doorway.  
>Something new passed between them for a moment. Something that made the whole Universe and then some flash before both their eyes in the same moment.<p>

There was an infectuous, defiant little smile playing around the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were glimmering.  
>He opened the door, and subtly offered his hand. The world lay beyond.<p>

"Well. Come along, then."


	6. The Theatre, Round Two

The Theatre, Round Two.

Fellow barmaid Jane waved at Alice, as the daring duo retraced their steps towards the staircase.

"I hope Peter doesn't come looking for me." she muttured.  
>"I hope <em>no-one <em>comes looking for you. Nobody else should be at risk." he retorted, face set determinedly.  
>"Ha! And what about me?"<p>

"You're in it now. No going back!" he grinned abruptly as they jogged up the steps, "You've got me, anyway. _One_ of you, piece of cake. More than two, and you lot tend to scatter, like children. I have to decide who I like best and just start from there. It holds everything else up."  
>"Wow. I'm glad it's only me then -"<p>

"Ssh!" he motioned suddenly. They were very near to the second floor.

They approached with a sudden air of solemnity - or in Alice's case, mostly fear - moving stealthily and slowly to the solid oak door that parted the aliens from them.  
>The Doctor pressed down very gradually on the handle, other finger and thumb in his top pocket, and they entered.<p>

There were four monsters waiting for them.  
>The donkey-head stood slightly forward, standing eerily still. The other three were dressed as Titania, Puck, and Oberon. They had done even worse in their attempts at convincing disguise - the barely humanoid faces were sloped and leering. Their bodies seemed made up of writhing, bristling leaves, with the same strange, drooping cloth hands and irregular proportions.<p>

"Well, hello again!"

Alice glanced sideways at the Doctor. He was waving a nonchalant hand at the terrifying creatures.  
>"<em>Why <em>are you _smiling_?" she hissed.  
>"Alice, please, a bit of politeness! We don't even know who our guests are yet."<br>"We know what they _do_." she murmured, nodding towards his top pocket.

"Ah, yes. Well thought of. So!" he whipped out the shield and it unfolded, creating a barrier from wall to wall and ceiling to floor of the corridor, "How are we all doing today? What's the low-down? Am I allowed to use that word? _Low-down_?"  
>The monsters did not seem to approve.<p>

"I was just passing through the neighbourhood, and I couldn't help wondering," the Doctor furthered, "Why there was a brand new species living off human nuclei inside a theatre. Is that so bad? So! Let's all _work together_, to figure this out."

What sounded like a derisive snort escaped from Titania.  
>"I think they think you're funny."<br>"Yes, thank you Alice. At least they don't think I'm _yummy_."

A scratchy, stilted voice erupted from the donkey's head.

"_We... do not - work - with Time Lords..._"

Alice's jaw dropped comically.  
>"How can I understand alien -"<p>

"Shh, TARDIS technology, it's converting language for you but we'll talk about that later, I promise. Now! Do you work with humans? I have one right here."  
>"<em>Humans are - sustenance.<em>"

"Won't you talk to Alice? Don't you think she has a right to speak for her planet?"  
>"<em>Humans are - inferior<em>."

"And you're _superior_, is that it? In your cubby-hole, picking off people one by one? Get out there and show yourselves, lordly conquerors!"

"_We are not - conquerors._"

The Doctor blinked.  
>"If you're not conquerors, then what are you?"<br>"_We - are running._"  
>"But what <em>are<em> you?"

"_Hiders_."

Alice cut in, overcome by curiosity.  
>"Hiders? As in, hiding? Hiding from what?"<p>

They regarded her silently. Oberon spoke up, slack mouth barely moving.  
>"<em>Doctor. You must - leave.<em>"

"That's a tad rude. I've only just got here. I shouldn't be drink-driving anyway, all that ale!"  
>"<em>You - are a threat.<em>"

"No, I'm not. I'm trying to help."  
>"<em>The Hiders go unnoticed. You, Doctor - are noticed. We cannot - hide - with you<em>."

Alice bristled. "He hasn't put up a signal or anything! You're disguised aren't you? - Sort of."  
>"<em>The human - has no concept.<em>"

"So tell us." the Doctor encouraged, winking at her.  
>"<em>We - have - perception filters. You - are - BREAKING - THEM!<em>" the monsters cried in unified frustration.

"I can help you! I have a ship, I can take you to another galaxy and drop you off. We'll put some perception filters around us too, it'll be fine."  
>"<em>It is - too late.<em>"  
>"What do you mean, too late? What's chasing you?"<p>

A force of a million electro-volts smashed against the shield. It crumpled and started to crack like glass.

He flinched, one hand on her shoulder. "Run, run, RUN!"  
>Off they went again, skidding down the steps for their dear lives. Alice nearly tripped on a turn in the staircase, but his fingers grasped her's and pulled her on, down, down, down.<p>

The monsters were in pursuit this time. They shot down after them without touching the steps, like ghosts.  
>The pair streaked across the pub floor and made it to the doorway, but the creatures were close behind.<p>

Fifty people looked up from their respective places around the room, from oak tables and chairs, from the black marble top bar, from the betting machines.

The monsters froze.

Then every human in the pub bent double in cell-splitting agony.  
>"STOP, STOP, STOP!" the Doctor cried. He made to run back, but Alice prevented him, keeping him in the safety of the doorway.<p>

"Let go! They're dying!" he roared in her face, trying to break free.  
>"I know, but <em>look<em>, Doctor. Look at the sky!"

He looked, and gasped. And then laughed.  
>It was the most magnificent laugh she had ever heard.<p>

"OI! HIDERS!"" he shouted gleefully, "_LOOK WHO'S COME TO COLLECT YOU!_"  
>That got their attention. Jolting in fear, they let the humans collapse to the ground unharmed, and huddled together like timid puppies.<p>

Flying pods as big as cars sailed down from the Mothership, landing gracefully on the roadside.

Their tops hissed open, and out stepped - some of the weirdest looking things Alice had ever seen - even given the circumstances.

The largest of the purple-hued four-legged things gallumphed up to the Doctor. It stood at about twice his height.  
>"Hello!" he grinned, waving.<p>

The alien pulled out a round object about the size of Alice's head, and in one fluid motion, aimed it at the Hiders.  
>They fizzled out - lost their solid forms - and became a beam of super light which fled into the ball.<p>

Alice laughed with a relief so dizzying she sounded quite mad.  
>"Just like Pokemon balls!"<p>

The Doctor coughed. "Just to make sure - you _are _benign? Not going to - cause any trouble, or -"  
>"Earth is insignificant to the Game."<p>

"Game? What's going to happen to those things when you go away, then?" Alice piped up.  
>"The Game will begin again. They will be taken back to the start."<br>"So if they're Hiders, that means you're -"  
>"Seekers, yeah." the Doctor put in, a tad too eager to be part of the mystery-solving process.<p>

"They will go back to the start, and we will Seek again."

Alice blinked.  
>"So, it's just a big outer-space game of hide and seek? Are you kidding me?"<p>

"We do not _kid_. We seek. It is our way."  
>"Oh. Sorry. It sounds - immense."<p>

"We bid you farewell, Doctor." the giant bowed to the both of them, and then gallumphed back to his pod.  
>All of the vessels at once rose smoothly into the heavens, leaving only gusts of wind in their wake.<p>

The Time Lord smiled reflectively, then patted Alice on the shoulder.

"Right then, Trouble. You look like you could do with a sit-down. Go to the TARDIS. I'll buy you something strong. If they're still serving."  
>She blinked, fazed by the surreality of it all.<br>"But - I have to go back and get _behind _the bar... My shift isn't over."

"Isn't it?" he leaned against the sandstone pillar, crossed his arms and eyed her speculatively, "You could come with me. And serve _us_ cocktails and cold beers instead. On the sunny beaches of Malotobarne, where you can walk on the water."

She raised an eyebrow at him, copying his pose.  
>He paused, cracking a smile. "We could go - exploring in the vast multi-jungle-mazes of Colt. We could fish for Javens in the Matter Pools, on the planet Britney."<p>

"There's a planet called Britney?"  
>"Oh yes, there is."<p>

Another pregnant pause.

"If you come with me, and see the stars and the moons and the planets. Sail the milky-way - and that's just for a start - well, you know..."  
>"<em>What<em>?"  
>"Aren't you pretty dazzled?"<p>

She sighed in protest.  
>"Of <em>course<em> I am _dazzled_, you spin prettier words than F. Scott. Fitzgerald -"

"I could take you to visit him. I've heard he's a wonderfully sensitive chap."  
>She genuinely gawped at him now.<p>

"What I am trying to _say_ is," he leaned in, "No more work shifts. No more _boring_. You don't need currency, out there. I know that's what you want, because you've wanted it all your life, to have so much bigger and madder and better than this -"

"How doyou know?" she demanded, going pale under her blush, "How do you know it's so important?"

"Come off it. You read Fitzgerald! Let me guess, you read The Hobbit as a child, and it didn't stop from there, right?"  
>"Almost. It was A Wizard of Earthsea. Then The Hobbit."<p>

"And also you told me. In the TARDIS." he smirked.  
>"I was hysterical."<br>"People show their true colours when they're hysterical."

They stared very hard at one another.

"So if I come with you -"  
>"You'll be my companion. My side-kick. My bodyguard - sometimes."<br>"I'll be your Robin?"  
>"You'll be my Robin, my Mary Jane, my Fallout Boy, my Krypto, my silver Surfboard."<p>

"And we'll have adventures?"  
>"Mad adventures!"<p>

"For how long?"  
>"... For as long as we like."<p>

"I'll think about it."  
>"You've already thought about it. And you're coming, because you can't possibly miss this."<br>"I know."

She beamed suddenly, in an instant of such pure and perfect joy and liberty that it made him remember - it made him _want _to remember.  
>He extended his arm, and she took it mockingly. He walked her sedately towards the blue box.<p>

"Are you ready?"  
>"I've been so ready I don't know what to do with myself."<br>"We'll get you some more tea to start with."

"And then?"  
>"And <em>then<em> I think we ought to call your university and tell them you have Glandular Fever. Just in case you forget to turn up to seminars once in a while."

"How did you know?"  
>"You're too intelligent to work in a pub full-time! English Literature?"<br>"And Drama."

"Oohhh, a thespian. The best ones for adventures. Lots of reaction."  
>"We'll see."<p>

The TARDIS door shut behind them, and within minutes, as John Symonds was just leaving the pub, it blinkered out of sight in front of his eyes.

John shook his head in elderly indignation, complained that it was all too much for his old heart, and set off to get his next pint in at The Shakespeare.


End file.
